Angel Dust
by A'isha Ishtar
Summary: He was never a typical teenager. The most apparent indicator of this was that before his hormones came in, something else did. Two somethings, actually. Follows "Angel's Tears", I recommend you read that before this.


**This is similar to the other one, "Angel's Tears". It takes place approximately three years after, though. Warren's wings are growing slowly, and by the time he's 13 they're about the size of, say... some fridge magnets? XD *is hit with random objects* I dunno, people! I make it up as I goooo!**

**Disclaimerrrr: Don't own X-Men, Warren, or his dad. I only own Trisha who is loosely based off Kathryn, Warren's mom from the comics. (Thanks to Echo Dancer for giving me some info about her, lol, I only read Wikipedia so I wouldn't have known ANY of that...) Please don't sue me. I only have fifty bucks, you're really not going to get much, it's not worth it...**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

><p>"Mom? Dad? Wake up... please, wake up... ngh..."<p>

Trisha Worthington blinked awake, rubbing at her eyes with her wrist and groaning as she shifted position next to her husband. She shook her head groggily, and flicked the bedside lamp on. It illuminated her side of the room, revealing her 13-year-old son Warren. His eyes were red and puffy, like he'd been crying, and his shirt was off. By the way he was squirming around, it looked like his back was bugging him again. "Warren? What's the matter, darling?"

"M-Mom..." He rubbed at his eyes, probably making them all the more swollen and red. "It's itching again... i-it's worse now... th-the wings are growing more... I can't sleep..."

"Well, don't cry, honey, you know that only makes it worse." She tried to sound as soothing as she could, but she was tired. She sat up, making enough movement on the bed to wake her husband.

"Trish?" The older Warren turned over slightly, looking at his wife but not seeming to notice his son. "What's going on? Something wrong?"

She glanced over at him, never taking one eye off the teenager. "Warren's up, his back is bugging him again. Will you move over?"

"No. Tell him to go back to his room." The elder turned back over, settling into the mattress once again and issuing a decisive grunt. "He's too old to sleep in our bed every time it happens, Trish. He's thirteen, for God's sake. Go back to bed, Warren." With that, he drifted off to sleep again and the discussion was over.

Trisha sighed and rolled back over to face Warren. This was a time she wished her husband was on a business trip and she could comfort their son herself, the way _she_ did it. She threw the sheets off herself and dangled her legs off the bed, pushing herself up. "You heard your father." She stood up, placing a hand on his back with the lightest touch she could muster. If she really pressed on it like she would with a normal child, it would make the itch worse. "Come on, I'll take you back."

"Okay." He leaned against her as he walked, taking her free hand with his for a moment. "Can you put on some of that special cream Dr. Cho and Dr. Parker gave us?"

She glanced down at him. "I thought you said that didn't help any."

"It doesn't help a lot... takes the edge off it so I might at least be able to sleep." The way he rubbed at his eyes now was a more tired sort of way, as opposed to rubbing tears away.

"Okay, I can do that, I guess." She stifled a yawn, but seconds later a loud yawn broke free from Warren.

When she looked over she saw him cover his mouth. "Excuse me."

"Poor baby." She slid her hand up and ruffled his hair, her long fingernails playing around his ear like she did sometimes. "I'm sorry you can't sleep."

He shrugged, shaking his head and yanking it away from her fingers. "Not like it's the first time it's happened."

"That makes it even worse."

They reached his room and Trisha closed the door once they were inside. "Lie down, Warren, I'll put some lotion on."

"Okay." She didn't see how painful it was for him to lay down, having her back turned to get the bottle of ointment from his dresser drawer, but she definitely heard it. It was painful for him to change positions; if he was standing, even if his feet were hurting him, he would stay standing until somebody forced him to sit or lie down. She heard the strained grunts he gave as he lowered himself first into sitting position, then as he slowly lie down on his side. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm okay. C-Can you hurry up, Mom? It's getting bad again..."

"Okay, okay, honey. I'm coming."

She sat down beside him, squeezed some of the lotion onto her fingers, and gently touched it to his back, around where the wings were. They were small, but they were there. And you could definitely tell they were wings. The skin around them was red and irritated, a sign that they hadn't finished growing in yet. There were small, raised dots all over his back, mostly around that area, the flesh around them all red and the bumps red themselves. He knew better not to scratch now; if he scratched, it would bleed. She'd had to take care of a screaming, wailing Warren more than once after he'd scratched; his back was always a bloody mess afterward. "Didn't scratch this time, did you?"

"Nngh..." He was clutching the sheets in a fist, his blonde head buried into his pillow. He was breathing deeply, as if trying to ignore her; she knew it was only because sometimes the ointment burned going on. "No, not this time... I rubbed it a little, through my shirt, but..."

"_Warren_..." she immediately began.

"I know, I know, I'm _sorry_... I was just tryin' to make it stop itching enough so that I could stand it but it didn't work."

"We've gone over this. You _know_ it doesn't work."

"I said I'm sorry, okay," he mumbled into the pillow, before releasing a tormented hiss as she spread more of the lotion onto what was apparently the spot he'd rubbed at earlier.

"_I'm_ not the one you need to apologize to, Warren. You did this to yourself, not to me."

"You said it hurts you too."

"Well, of _course_ it does, Warren. But I've been... you need to start growing up a little. I can't baby you and tell you I'm sorry about everything anymore. I _am_ sorry, but really, Warren, I..." She trailed off as her hand went lower on his back to reach the rest of the rash.

She both heard and felt him sigh, sinking back into the pillow. "Yeah. I get it, Mom. I know."

She drew her hand away and capped the tube. "It's not too hot in here, is it, sweetheart?"

"Nah." All of a sudden she noticed him shivering, and she could hear a few strangled sniffles coming from him.

"It's not warm _enough_? You sound like you're getting a cold." She reached over and placed the back of her hand (the one she hadn't had the lotion on) against his forehead as well she could. "You don't feel like you have a fever..."

As she drew her hand away, her fingers brushed against something... wet. "Oh, Warren." She placed one hand against his back right between the tiny wings, and put her clean hand on his arm. "Are you crying, honey?"

Another sniffle. "Uh... uh-huh."

"Oh sweetheart, it's okay. Don't cry, Warren." She carefully lie down beside him, keeping one hand on his back and the other coiled around his arm and stomach, hugging him loosely. "Mommy's here, I've got you."

"It h-hurts so... _b-b-bad_," he choked out, tensing up against her touch. "I c-can't... ta... take it, Mom..."

"Shh, shh." She rubbed his back in little circles, never letting go of him. "Don't worry, Warren. Everything will be alright as long as I'm here. I promise."

She didn't know if she could keep that promise. But she could hope.

* * *

><p>Trisha was lounging in her bedroom reading, her husband in the workroom with Dr. Cho and Dr. Parker, when the phone by her bed rang. She slipped a bookmark between the pages, set it down, and picked up the phone. "Hello, Worthington residence. May I ask who's speaking?"<p>

"M-Mom? Is that you?"

Trisha straightened up at hearing her 15-year-old son Warren's voice. "Warren? What's the matter, are you okay? You sound horrible."

"Y-Yeah, I... I'm, um, on my way home."

"But aren't you at track practice? I thought you guys had that marathon thing coming up in a few weeks..."

"Yeah, I... I really don't feel so well." His voice was shaky, and to be honest it sounded like he was scared of something. "I feel like I'm going to be sick to my stomach..."

Trisha grabbed her book and put it in the drawer of the bedside table. "Oh, well, I'll be right over, honey. You just stay-"

"No!" he almost shouted. She then heard him swallow nervously, and he took in a trembly breath. "S-Sorry, Mom, I just... one of the other guys is driving me. I-I should be there in, like... five minutes. And then I..."

"And _then_," she interrupted, "you're going to bed, young man. You're going to bed and I'm taking your temperature and you're not leaving till you get better."

"O-Okay... okay, Mom. I-I'll see you soon."

"Alright. Love you, Warren."

"Love you too. Bye."

"Bye-bye." She hung the phone up and got her book out of the drawer. She tried to keep reading to find out who the killer was, but for some reason she found it difficult after that phone call. It definitely sounded like Warren was sick, but something about the way he was talking told her he wasn't telling her everything.

She eventually got up and walked down the elaborate staircase to the living room, where she could wait until he got there. She tried turning the TV on, but that didn't help either, so she just opted to sit in silence.

After seven agonizing minutes, the door was pushed open, and Warren stumbled in. He almost collapsed on the floor, but Trisha leapt up and managed to catch him. He had a bruise on the side of his face, and his lip was cut and bleeding, but at the moment that wasn't what she was staring at.

"W-Warren!" she cried, pulling him inside and slamming the door. She pointed at him, shock and awe the only two things filling her at the moment. "Those _wings_!" She tried to hold him up, placing a hand on his bare chest so she could support him. It looked like whatever strength he had left was quickly heading south. "Wh... What happened?"

He glanced at her, looking like he was barely able to hold his head up. Indeed there were a pair of spanning, glorious white wings sprouting from his back, each an intricate system of silver feathers. He swallowed before trying to speak. "I... couldn't... sorry..."

She shook her head, leading him over to the couch. "Here, you need to sit down first." She helped him sit, and when he tried to lean back the wings fluttered in protest and he immediately jerked forward again, his shoulders tensing up. "Oh, what happened? This morning they were barely the size of your hand!"

He pressed his wrist against his forehead, groaning. "I was... running... with the rest of the guys. _Aghh_, it hurts!" He leaned forward even more, as if he could escape it that way. "And I... I could feel it... they were... the itching was... worse than it's ever been, so I... so I told Coach I had to throw up and just ran to the locker room..." He took shallow breaths for a minute and then laid down on his stomach, draping his head and hand over the arm of the couch. "Agh... and then... I-I took my shirt off and they just... _whoosh_! And I looked in the mirror and saw... s-saw..." He began to sob, shoving his face into the arm of the couch while the rest of his body shook and the wings fluttered frantically. "_This_! I-I'm a freak, Mom! I am and I always will be!"

Trisha got down on the floor so she could be next to him, and she stroked his hair and just looked at him. She thought he looked beautiful, though she was scared for the future. He certainly couldn't go to school like this, after all. He already got picked on for being shy, and this would just make all that teasing intensify. "Oh baby, come on. It's not that bad."

"_Not that bad_?" Warren looked up at her, tears streaming down his cheeks and his eyes full of devastation. "Mom, how can you say that? _I flew here_!"

Trisha's eyes widened and she was instantly flooded with worry. "Warren, you mean you _flew_ with those? _Why the hell would you do something so stupid_?"

"Well, it wasn't like I could a-ask anybody else. And if I just walked, I wouldn't... have made it home."

"I offered to pick you up! Why didn't you just let me come get you?"

He sniffled, rubbing at his eyes. "I... I didn't want to talk about this at school. And how would you have gotten me home? I really don't think _these_..." He flapped his wings a few times. "Will fit in the car. I don't know if I can fold them up or anything."

"Angel, angel." Trisha tilted his chin up and fingered the purpling bruise on the left side of his face. She also ran her fingertip over his bottom lip, which was sliced open, dribbling blood down his face, and starting to swell up. "What was this from? Running into a building?" she tried to joke, attempting to lighten the situation a bit.

Here Warren blushed a little bit, then cast his eyes downward in an extremely sheepish manner before muttering, "... Yeah."

She shot him an incredulous look. "_Warren K. Worthington the Third_!"

"I-I didn't mean it!" he defended. "To be totally fair, I was flying _fine_ until I almost ran into a skyscraper! I went down to avoid it and cracked my head off another building!"

"_You cracked your head_?"

Warren dropped his head back down, resting his uninjured cheek against the couch again. "Th-That's not what I meant, Mom. I just meant I... bumped into it. It wasn't hard enough to actually cut the skin... e-except for my lip, I mean. And most of that skin fell off already..."

"Oh, my poor baby." Trisha stood up and continued to caress his wavy blonde hair, then sighed. "C'mon, we have to get you taken care of. Now if I can just remember where I put that bottle of iodine..."

Warren stood up, albeit shakily, but tried to follow his mother. "M-_Mom_! You can't put _iodine_ on my _lip_! That's going to _hurt_! ... Excruciatingly so!" he added as an afterthought, ambling up the stairs after her.

"Exactly. It's a treatment and a punishment all in one. Half keeping your lip from becoming infected from whatever God-damned germs were on that building, and half whipping your ass for flying home when you _really_ have no control over it!"

"I said I didn't do that badly! And it actually felt kind of... good! Like I didn't have to _worry_ about anything! Like... all of the pain was _gone_!"

"Until you smashed your face against a building. Don't fly anymore until you can control it better. I don't want to be having to do this every damn day, Warren."

"I... I know, Mom. I'm so sorry... I really shouldn't have done it."

She led him into the bathroom and sat him down on the toilet before rummaging through the medicine cabinet. She paused, then bent down to him and wrapped her around around him, cleverly avoiding the wings. "I just don't want this to happen again. I'm so worried for you..."

She felt his arms and the wings wrap around them both, shielding them from the hard future to come. "I love you too, Mom. I'm... I'm sorry I don't say it enough any more, but I do."

Trisha let go of him and felt the wings uncoil from around them. At the moment what she thought was that it was a _damn_ good thing they had a bathroom this big, otherwise she'd have had to leave him alone downstairs for a minute. She smiled at him, and he smiled in return, and she went back to the medicine cabinet.

After a moment came her "Ah-_ha_!" of triumph. She turned to face her son, holding the small bottle of bitter liquid. "Alright. Head up, mouth open, say 'ahh'."

He did as he was told, his wings drooping just a little bit. It became clear to her that he was _very_ embarrassed about everything that had happened - not just the flying home and running into a building, but the wings sprouting.

"And I don't care if you _are_ my angel, Warren - you're still grounded for a month after this."

* * *

><p><strong>... Reviews is love! You can count on at least one more of these, not sure if there'll be more after that... but I really had fun writing this. I loves it.<strong>

**If you read, drop me a line and lemme know what ya thought! ^^**


End file.
